The End of the World: The New Battlestar Galactica (Spoilers Allowed)

Besides, I suspect it would take some time for the colonists to start getting "randy" with the natives. Perhaps even a generation.

And perhaps Hera's special destiny had another chapter left to it.

 

It's official: Hot Dog is the Wedge of BSG, never dies, starts out as a throwaway pilot who keeps reappearing but never get major character status. It's too bad they didn't show what happened with him on earth.

Also, is anyone else surprised that galactica only lost 4 vipers in the battle? They looked to be WAY outnumbered by the raiders, or are the viper pilots just so skilled now that they are worth several raiders, especially now that they have a lot more of the newer vipers from pegasus. It's also amazing that adama's old viper was never destroyed during all the battle over the years.

 

What would've been awesome...was if when the angel six and baltar are in NY at the end...and the "name" thing comes up...Kara is the preferred name.

that would blow minds!

 

No, it wasn't exactly "fight the machines," but I think the robot montage makes it pretty obvious what could happen again if society isn't careful. It's a nice message, sure. I was just expecting something a bit more in your face and cerebral.

I'll have to rewatch 4.5 in a few months to better take in everything, but as of right now I think the 4.0 ending was more effective, more of an incisive and honest brand of ambiguity than "god and angels did it!"

 

A couple of things. They landed 150,000 years before the present. Historical record shows people migrating out of Africa shortly after that point. So basically, Hera grew up, had babies, and from then on the migratory patterns and simple mathematics took care of the rest.

Consider this: a generation is about 25 years. Give or take, more or less. In previous centuries, generations came a lot faster. Still do in some parts of the world. Go back 100 years and the average person is looking at eight great-grandparents. Go back another 100 years and you're looking at 128 people as ancestors. Keep going back and the number will continue to grow exponentially. It isn't too long before it becomes obvious that there's overlap. Your great-great-great-great-grandmother on one branch of your family tree is your great-great-great-great-great-grandmother on another side of the tree. The mathematics of genetics boil down to some interesting things: essentially, it's pretty likely that Europeans are all descended from just about every major European historical figure who had children and lived over 1,000 years ago.

With Hera's descendants spreading out across all of Africa, and then Europe and Asia, and then to North America and Australia and South America, there's plenty of time for her line to establish themselves. Plus, it looks like the colonies on Australia, North America and South America died out, since our record of human habitation there definitely doesn't ho back 150,000 years.

Finally, consider this too: Hera is the winner in the genetic lottery. When people are looking for a potential mate, the person who is physically fit and good looking and intelligent has a certain edge, and Hera's descendent's probably had a slight overall edge over their counterparts.

 

Was anyone else surprised Cavil just popped himself off?

When I saw that I immediately thought "he's already figured it out!"

Or at least, he's found a way to download to a centurion or something.

The concept of non-existence to that cowardly dude...I can't see him doing that unless he had an out.

 

Some larger thoughts later, but for now some of my intital impressions:

So this was a "Dark Tower" ending. Hmm...can't say I'm very surprised.

Considering I suspected this ending since Day One, I'm pleased. The only thing that really jarred me was some editing that was definitely too quick. The Cavil-suicide, the death of Tory, and some of the on-Earth scenes. It didn't fit with the pacing of the rest of the episode, and was very noticeable to my eye. Undoubtedly there will probably be some fleshing-out in an extended-extended DVD version.

The real problem with this episode is not really the episode itself, but the story-structure leading up to it. There were definite pace and emphasis issues in this season that made the finale look half as good as it actually, truly is. Mainly, the needless waffling in characterizations that undermined the reveals and the final ending of the main characters' respective journeys. Despite being rather short and sweet, I thought it wrapped things up really well.

The first 30 minutes or so dragged on a bit, but there was sufficient action in the middle hour to make it worthwhile. The last 30 minutes or so were quite good, but the finale ended up being a really nice postcard about the beauty of Earth. I'm knocking it somewhat because I didn't like the final, fourth-wall "moralizing" bit between the "angels." I think it would have been nice simply to end either with the pullaway from Hera, or with the voiceover of Angel Caprica Six reading the news article.

Dispersing people across our Earth was all right by me...but cavemen? Really? I was thinking for a minute it was a Geico commercial. Also, even with just the clothes on their backs, I just can't see an intelligent group of people landing on a planet and seemingly regressing to African tribal-levels in no time at all.

I mean, there's a spread of 150,000 years before the Heimlich maneuver would be reinvented.

Though I'm guessing that most people will be wondering why the hell didn't they explain all of what went on with Starbuck. You can't explain how God works. The best you can say is that she was an angel. I guess she could have been Kara back from the dead, flying back form Earth in a Viper that God built, instead of an angel with Kara's memories who thought she was Kara. I can understand how some folks would find it a bit unsatisfying to have her disappear with no explanation of what she really was.

Cavil's suicide stuck out for me as a weird bit at first, then I reconsidered it. The one thing Cavil desires most is control. He had landed in a situation where he had no control, and had no hope of gaining control, ever. He was going to die, there was nothing he could do about it, and no chance to accomplish anything before he dies. The only control he had left was the manner of his own death, and he took advantage of it before he lost that, too. For such a militant, "We're MACHINES!!" hardliner, that is a very human response to the situation. Not a healthy response, but still very much a human one.

I was hoping for someone to question why so many old-model Centurions were present. Or at least some comment upon it. I would have thought that Cavil would have made sure the defenses were upgraded with the most advanced combat drones available.

Also -- what did Angel Baltar mean when he said, "He doesn't like to be called that"? The Baltar and Six in New York City were the "head" characters, and the protohumans were not placed there. They were already there. Baltar said the chances were astronomical, but they were guided there by a higher power. "Head" characters...they are independent beings who work for someone that doesn't like being called God, but apparently

 

Well, that's pretty depressing then. It basically means no matter who survived, it didn't matter- so long their name wasn't Hera

The big problem for many of the other groups is the lack of any other human populations interbreed with. No humans were living in Australia, North America, or South America. Perhaps the colonials and Cylons in Europe tried to mate with Neanderthal. They could have succeeded but the Neanderthals eventually went extinct.

 

Overall, I liked it very much. I loved the way Watchtower was used and how prehistoric earth was depicted, though the Ragtag Fleet being equivalent to the Golgafrincham Ark Fleet is a little grating, if only because of my anth background. It makes me wonder why so many stories involve some sort of deus ex machina to make "protohumans" into "humans." Are we afraid to admit we are apes? At least the question of how the protohumans can exist in addition to the fleet people is acknowledged, even if it is a handwave. Also the "scientists have found the remains of Mitochondrial Eve" was a little too much - HOW would we know we had found Mitochondrial Eve? There is no way. Plus, Homo sapiens did not live anywhere but Africa until much later than the show says the Galactica people got there, though I suppose that is explained by Mitochondrial Eve being Hera. The other groups of survivors spread across the globe didn't produce offspring. And I suppose any lingering questions or inconsistencies with (pre)history as we know it can be handwaved away as the work of the OTG, which I guess I can buy.

The emotion of the story that really affected me was the resolution of Kara's story. I just got a feeling of incredible sadness/melancholy about it - she was really dead since Maelstrom. And once her journey ended, she could disappear. I can't really put it into words so well - but it seemed perfect.

My own little story would have had it being exactly the same as it was, except that it turns out that after all is said and done, while the planet appears to be in our past, it is actually in our far future, post-industrial collapse. It'd continue the cycle concept, and would add to the questions of what came first, and whether the fleet people came from THIS earth, long before the whole colonies/Kobol/13th Colony turns of events.

Anyone else catch the use of some of Grand Moff Tarkin's lines by the Cylon doctor? I chuckled a little at those.

Also, is it just me or did it seem like they were about to reveal who was meeting Caprica Six in the miniseries during that one flashback?

I could have done without the heavy-handed moralizing by the characters - the point seemed straightforward enough. Still, it was well done. Not done necessarily how I would have done it*, but well done nonetheless.

*Imagine if the true earth constellations had not been used until the shot of Galactica breaking her back... that could have been excellent.

 

(1) People will disagree, but that was top 5 episodes of the entire series. Endings are difficult, and we got better than expected.

(2) This wasn't about humans vs. machines. This was about humans vs. their own inadequacies.

(3) The only point that wasn't really explained was why Hera was important in the first place. Couldn't she have been all Cylon or all human, and still been "mitochondrial Eve"? I guess we have to assume that hers was the only successful reproduction with the locals;

(4) Are you really that surprised that humanity said "frak it, we're parking on Earth and that's that?" I mean, they tried that with New Caprica, with no guarantee that the Cylons wouldn't find them on a planet that was barely habitable. Think about how far they come and where they realistically would have gone. Don't forget, they had limited resources and their flagship was donezo. Plus, they destroyed all their ships to hide from the Cylons just in case.

(5) People talking about other Cylons lying around the galaxy - unlikely - they made it pretty clear that the Cylons as a species had lost resurrection technology. The colony baseship was nuked to oblivion. Darth Cavil killed himself.

(6) How awesome was it that Cavil killed himself? Really the perfect end.

(7) Little touches were great - once again, humanity's ranks are spread thin, so suddenly it's President Romo and Admiral Hoshi.

(8) Another little touch - Baltar escapes Caprica on the last Raptor available. This time, he decides to stay, passing on a trip on the last Raptor available.

(9) Moore decided to give us 1/2 action, then 1/2 happy denouement, and I think that's the right approach. We've never really had a happy ending in BSG before. I really think this is the type of episode where if he tried to explain things, it either would have been really lame, or really polarizing.

(10) What actions do you think broke the cycle of "this has all happened before, it will all happen again?"

(11) Is this parallel universe Earth, or the same Earth, but 150,000 years ago?

 

Crap double post.

Oh yeah, one last point:

I thought it was very clever how they left alive the 2 major theories of evolution:

(1) the mainline theory is that humanity was "born" in Africa and spread out of Africa, colonizing Asia, the Middle East and Europe. After generations and generations, humanity spread farther and farther around the globe, but evolved from the same genetic group. This tends to be borne out by some African villages having more variety in their DNA than all of Europe or Asia...

(2) The other theory is that humanity "simultaneously", in an evolutionary sense, evolved across the various continents.

So take either theory, you can find 'evidence' for either in tonight's finale.

 

The serious death probably came around 70,000 B.C.E., when the Toba supervolcano erupted. Most of those colonies would've been wiped out at that point, with only the African-descended humans surviving.

While it isn't 100% clear, the evidence suggests a catastrophic, near-extinction-level event. Homo sapiens was brought down to somewhere around 2,000 people. Total. In the entire world. Depending on how big the population was beforehand, this could easily have ended quite a few matrilineal lines. This was an explosion equivalent to at least 1 teraton of TNT. That's a thousand billion tons of TNT, 20,000 times the power of the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated. It had to be as much luck as anything else for our species to have survived.

Assuming that Earth history takes its known course after the Colonials and Cylons settled here, there is nothing to suggest they had anything to do with any later mass death among the existing population, going from the show's implication.

 

She's not a literal biblical Eve. A mitochondrial Eve is a female ancestor from whom all living humans can trace descent through a genetic history imprinted in one's mitochondria. She's not (necessarily) the only ancestor from that generation, but a mitochondrial Eve is one ancestor whom everyone can point a finger to. It also is possible for there to be more than one mitochondrial Eve. This is important because it shows that every living human on Earth 2 has at least some human and cylon blood in them.

As of today, geneticists have only been able to pinpoint a single mitochondrial eve for all real-world humans. She is believed to have lived about 150,000 years ago, in the eastern part of Africa, right around the time of the first successful human migration into Asia and onto the rest of the world.

 

At the end of things, in my mind, there's only really one question left: What exactly was Kara? And I think that I'm fine with not knowing the answer.



I'm somewhat grateful that the RDM interviews confirm that he never intended Danial to be Kara's father, and that people were reading way too much into that that he hadn't intended. As I've said elsewhere, the timeline itself doesn't match up at all. Daniel was murdered before Tigh and the other five were sent to the Colonies. Tigh had been in the Colonies for at least thirty-five years. Kara is less than thirty-five, and her father didn't leave her family until she was old enough to know him, around nine or ten years old. Further, her father was a concert musician. His name, his image were on recordings. Cavil would have quickly found him and killed him.

Doesn't add up.

 

I think it's fair to say that the blast of six nukes would've knocked the Baseship out of orbit and pushed it into the black hole.

 

When Cavill is talking to Baltar about a leap of faith at the end, was I the only one yelling out "A Quantum Leap???"

Come on, I wasn't the only one.

So yeah, it sucks to be Lee Adama, huh?

 

From a certain viewpoint, yeah. But from another I think it'll do him some good. He's a guy that has always had people around him, his brother, Kara, his father, Dee etc. Now that he doesn't have any people baggage and can go and explore and find solace, he may finally find peace.

Also, gotta love that Galen is the first Scotsman. It'd explain why they're so bloody good at engineering .

 

Moore has confirmed he knew people were going to be pissed off at the lack of explanation about Starbuck, but he said they tried a few different things out and it just made things worse.

He also confirmed they screwed up the editing: the colony baseship was supposed to blow up and get sucked into the black hole, killing the Cylons.

 

My favorite parts of this series were probably in this episode. I loved it. Especially the ending. Excellent. And The Plan should wrap up anything we might want to know about the Cylons. I can't really see what else to do to Kara, Bill's ending seemed natural, love what they did with Sam and also Boomer, who slightly redeemed herself in the end. Seeing Athena with Helo and Hera was very touching. The Opera house fit perfectly well, I loved it being the CIC. That's where the most drama happens, right? Gaius was very cool talking Cavil out of taking Hera. So, Head Six and Gaius are Angels? And so is Kara? Oh yeah.

"OH FRAK!"

*shoots himself*

 

Holy crap. What an episode...

1. Cavil's suicide was made of win.

2. Ramming Galactica into the Cylon ship was pretty sweet. (This was very well foreshadowed in the beginning of "Islanded in a Stream of Stars" with Hera playing in the CIC).

3. The Opera House vision. When it was being played out, I actually yelled "I knew it!" (although I actually thought it would be Athena and Roslin chasing Hera through the Cylon ship, with Six and Baltar taking her onto a rescue ship and leaving them behind. Glad I was wrong on that one, but it was still pretty close).

4. New vs. old Centurions. I'm pretty sure one of the main reasons the Colony was (mostly) using the old Centurion models was so that it would be easier to tell the Colonials from the Cylons, since in the mayhem, it was difficult to make out the red stripes on the rebel Centurions.

5. Boomer sort of redeeming herself right before her death. It still doesn't really make up for all she's done, but at least she made good on her word to Adama on "owing him one."

6. Tyrol killing Tory. Right up until we actually started seeing it, I had actually forgotten about that. I think someone mentioned (either in this thread or the JCC thread) that they didn't like how it was cut together, and you never really knew what was going on during that...I think it worked well. It was a chaotic situation, and the way it was edited fit that very nicely.

7. Racetrack and Skulls assisting the Colonials from beyond the grave. For just a few seconds I thought one of them wasn't dead, and they were just going to nuke the Colony as a last ditch effort to do something.

8. I was very glad to see that the first view of Earth we got was of some continent other than North America. I know it's a small detail, but it was still nice.

9. Decommissioning Galactica by flying it into the sun. Simply awesome, and a very nice way to send it out. I also felt that was a good way to send of Anders, who really pulled through for the Colonials during the attack on the Colony.

10. The 'Head' characters being angels. I had been suspecting this for several episodes...the way light was shining on Head Six in the last few episodes gave her a sort of an angelic appearance.

11. Starbuck. I like how it's very ambiguous as to what she actually is, but this goes with my theory I posted earlier that everything won't be answered etc. It's apparent that she is some sort of divine being, but not a head character either (since I don't think they can shoot people). Also, this fits nicely with the sleeper agent Cylons from earlier in the series. I suppose you could also liken her to Gandalf...she died, but she still had work to be done, so she was sent back to do what she needed to and then when her work was finished, leaving those she returned to. (Although Gandalf knew what was going on. Starbuck didn't, but it's close enough).

12. Roslin's death. It seemed fitting that she died when they had found a home for the survivors. I think that's what had kept her going for so long, and once that had been fulfilled, she could die knowing that everything would be alright. Also, she is a cougar, and that gave me a mixed "oh my God ah!" and "that's epic" reaction.

I'm going to have to rewatch it again later, and at that point I'll post some more stuff. In short, very good finale, and "The Plan" looks very interesting.

 

Okay, new theory.

I wonder if the humans/Cylons in this cycle actually failed, to a certain extent.

The Gods/Angels put so much emphasis on the Opera House. This was a convergence in space and time that was very significant to the higher powers. What was this scene about? The Humans/Cylons making peace by sharing information and making the "leap of faith" to end their long war.

Well, what happens? Friggin' loony Tyrol and sketchy Tory ruin everything with their petty human flaws. This has all happened before, and it will all happen again.

Almost as soon as this short peace is broken, fate steps in and launches Racetrack's nukes. It's like the Higher Power said "oh crap, they ruined plan A, go to plan B." Plan B involves starting over on Earth (which was always programmed into Starbuck) and trying to form a new civilization.

 

Right, now that it's been long enough after watching the finale that I can say stuff about it other than: "AWESOME!" I'll try and write up my thoughts about it properly:

AWESOME!

One hell of a finale. I keep bringing up quality comparisons to Babylon 5 and I'm not gonna stop here. It's the best finale I've seen to a show since 'Sleeping in Light' and like 'Sleeping in Light' it bloody well made me tear up. Seeing Galactica and the rest of the fleet heading towards the Sun gave me a lump in my throat, then Roslin's death finally made me well up properly. I don't even like Roslin, but Olmos made that scene all the more powerful. Baltar realising he'll be spending the rest of his life as a farmer got me going too.

The action in this episode was immense! It exceeded my best expectations in every way imaginable. I was watching it and thinking: "Holy Moly, Galactica's taking an absolute pounding but still not blown up. Don't make 'em like they used to." And when you think about it, they really don't. Look at Pegasus. Pretty much in tip-top condition for the battle over New Caprica, but barely lasted long at all. Compare that to Galactica in the finale, a ship which by all intents and purposes should fall apart if you sneezed on her, yet there she is taking rail gun rounds, missiles, RAMMING A BLOODY GIANT BASESHIP like she's brand new! I reckon she just flew straight through the Sun, she's that tough.

As for the actual meat and potatoes of the show, I got the answers to the questions I wanted mostly. I don't much give a damn about Hera, what I cared about was the Opera House and Head Baltar/Six. I would've liked to have known exactly what Kara was as well, but I honestly have no idea. Angel, apparition, God, who the hell knows.

The only thing I didn't like was the little montage at the end. I expected it to say "Domo arigato misuta Robotto" rather than Ronald D Moore, but there we go.

Overall, an amazing finale and now with BSG ended and The Clone Wars finished for the season, all I have to download now is Lost . What am I gonna do with myself now?!